SYLVIA Choi was just 25 when she overdosed on pills at Stereosonic festival in Sydney last November. Stefan Woodward, 19, died in exactly the same way a week later.

Yet as hospital admissions for ecstasy and MDMA use soar in Australia, the chilling stories are failing to stop young people risking their lives.

“People are like ‘it’s so dangerous, you don’t know what you’re taking’, and well actually, we’re taking it anyway,” one user tells Four Corners in tonight’s report.

“If the government thinks that people are going to stop taking drugs, they’re kidding themselves,” adds another.

Australia now has the world’s highest number of ecstasy and MDMA users per capita, and the number of emergency admissions for so-called “party drugs” to NSW hospitals has doubled in five years.

Drug policy experts say it’s time to follow in the steps of the Netherlands and introduce free drug testing facilities, so festival-goers can see exactly what they are consuming.

The owner of Australian drug testing business EZ Test, Steven Bourke, told news.com.au that pharmacist Sylvia could still be alive if she had used one of the company’s kits, after she reportedly died from a super-strength dose of MDMA, the pure chemical component of ecstasy.

“If she had used one of the MDMA purity kits, she may still be with us,” Mr Bourke said. “It may have told her what was in it and she could have worked out that she had a very high dose of MDMA on her, and only taken half of what she did.”

Sylvia Choi overdosed at Stereosonic.Source:Supplied

Stefan Woodward, 19, died after taking pills.Source:Supplied

A PILL CHEAPER THAN GETTING DRUNK

Four Corners reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna said pills were now more appealing to young people than ever because they were so cheap and readily available. An ecstasy pill might cost $20 and keep the user high for four hours.

“A pill is cheaper than three schooners at the pub,” she told news.com.au after visiting Victoria’s forensic drug-testing lab. “For uni students, it’s cheaper to get high than get drunk. The strength of ecstasy has gone through the roof. It was 5 or 10 per cent purity, now it’s up to 60 per cent, super-strength MDMA.

According to reporter Dan Roxanne, one man thought he had bought a gram of ketamine for $200, but it was actually Ritalin, a drug commonly used to treat ADHD.

When asked whether he would still take the drugs, the man replied: “Yes … because they’re fun.”

Mr Roxanne encountered several people who thought they had bought ecstasy pills, only to find out they were actually made from speed.

“The most concerning event of the day was getting a result that didn’t match anything in the [colour coded] manual. It was supposedly MDMA but after mixing a sample it went sort of orange but with a black tinge,” he wrote.

According to EZ Test’s colour chart, black indicates a presence of DXM or Dextromethorphan, a hallucinogen usually used in cough medication as a cough suppressant, which can also shut down your respiratory system.

The man who donated the drug to be tested “didn’t seem surprised” his sample had this result.

“The guy I bought it from is a douchebag and shady as hell,” he said. “I was going to take it without any thought, but now this has got me a little scared.”

The EZ Test drug testing kit online store.

WILL DRUG TESTING SOLVE THE PROBLEM?

Drug testing isn’t perfect. Not only will some people take what they have anyway, some might be allergic to a substance in the drug and not know it.

But senior figures including former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer say they would support pill testing to reduce the danger for young people who choose to take ecstasy.

“I have no problem with it at all, I think it makes absolute sense to try to test the quality of the drugs that people are taking,” Mr Palmer said.

Most experts agree the government’s “war on drugs” isn’t working.

Emergency physician and drug expert David Caldicott told 7.30: “(The saying) ‘don’t use drugs’ is perfectly acceptable for primary school kids and the people who aren’t already using drugs.

“But for this group of people, they’ve already decided to use drugs and we need to be far more nuanced in our approach to illicit drugs than we currently are.”

Four Corners - Dying to Dance 'Its cheaper than alcohol' Promo0:20

They're the voices of young Australians, speaking candidly about taking so-called 'party drugs' and they're more common than you would guess. Caro Meldrum-Hanna goes inside the dance party drug scene, in 'Dying to Dance' Courtesy: Four Corners/ABC

February 15th 2016

10 months ago

/video/video.news.com.au/News/

Sniffer dogs and a strong police presence at festivals have failed as measures to stop the problem, say experts.

Ms Meldrum-Hanna said she watched young women at dance parties writhing on the ground vomiting, their eyes rolling back in their heads, their friends too scared to take them to the medical tent because they feared an encounter with law enforcement.

Former NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery said the current approach of searching young people as they entered festivals might be causing more harm than good.

“There can be some harmful effects, for example if somebody sees a sniffer dog coming along they might rather stupidly swallow whatever they’ve got and there have been some examples of that and that can lead to very serious physical harm,” he said.

Arrests for personal possession have quadrupled in the past few years, whereas arrests for supply have barely risen. The authorities are focusing on “low-hanging fruit”, said Ms Meldrum-Hanna, while our borders remain incredibly porous when it comes to ecstasy smuggling.

“The government headline stance on drugs is preventing people getting what they need,” she added. “It isn’t just harming, it could be killing people. No one should go out and come home in a body bag.”

Former heads of the AFP and DPP even told Four Corners we needed to talk about legalisation.

“You take a 20mg sample of your drug — roughly the size of a match head — put it in the test tube, shake it and measure the colour against the chart, then you throw the tube away,” he said.

The tests are sold as singles ($7.95-$12.95) and multi packs ($21-$79.95) online and in tobacconists around the country. It reveals how pure or strong a substance is and what other products the ‘pure’ drug has been cut with.

Four Corners - Dying to Dance Promo 20:21

Australians are the highest users of ecstasy, per capita, in the world. Reporter Caro-Meldrum Hanna goes inside the dance party drug scene. Courtesy: Four Corners/ABC

February 15th 2016

10 months ago

/video/video.news.com.au/News/

“We have the MDMA purity test that tells you the strength of the MDMA you’re going to take,” Mr Bourke said. “And we have an ecstasy test which tells you what other chemicals are in your pill. It can list about seven-eight different chemicals. And we have a ketamine test, because ketamine can find its way into ecstasy [pills] sometimes

“We have a cocaine purity test that will tell you if what you have is 20-40 per cent, 40-60 per cent or 60-80 per cent pure cocaine. We have a kit called cocaine cuts, which can list up to 10 substances that the cocaine could be cut with.”

Mr Bourke has now asked his supplier to make a kit that tests for ice, in the wake of Australia’s burgeoning ice epidemic.

But NSW Police Minister Minister Troy Grant said drug testing was “not going to happen in NSW while I’m the minister.”

“A pill testing regime may well tell you what’s in that pill, but it has no way to tell you whether it will kill you or not,” he said. “What you’re proposing there is a government regime that is asking for taxpayers’ money to support a drug dealer’s business enterprise.”

With seven ecstasy deaths in 15 months, users are becoming more aware of the drugs they consume. Mr Bourke said he’d seen a “massive increase” in sales over the past year.

“About a year ago we were selling 15-20 kits a week. A couple of nights ago we had to fill around 35 orders overnight. We’re out of stock of several kits right now,” he said.

But he can’t see Australia introducing drug testing facilities.

“Can you imagine people bowling up to a festival with their drugs in their hands and happily testing them outside the gates? They’ll have to do it before they get to the festival. I can never see that happening in this country.”

Four Corners report “Dying To Dance – inside the dance party drug scene” airs tonight at 8.30, tomorrow at 10am and Wednesday at 11pm on ABC, Saturday at 8pm on ABC News 24 or catch up on ABC iview.

Dear Me - Dangers of Drugs22:58

Andrew Chan wrote this letter in the hope that it reaches high school students and that his story will make them think more about their lives and the decision they make.